Mos: Something you might consider. You'll want to look at these lots before purchasing so do a few things. Check out the neighbors a ways along in each direction. Do they look like they are set up to survive if TSHTF? If so, prioritize that lot. Familiarize yourself with the edible wild plants in the area you are looking at, scrutinize the lot. Does it have edibles on it already? If so prioritize that lot. Give yourself a 1-10 scale, add a point for each of the things I mentioned, decide what else should add points as well.

As for purchasing with someone, I also recommend getting the lot in your own name, not anyone else's, not sharing, etc... Too many potential problems, even with people you've known forever, to do it any other way than getting it yourself.

If you have familiarized yourself with the edibles that will grow wild in the area you finally acquire a lot in, then you can seed your lot with those things that can grow there wild. Let them go on their own and then if/when you pull up with your pop-up there will be other things available than pine needle tea. Seed with some of the pines that have edible nuts (Pinyon treess of different varieties are the most common commercially available pine nut trees but there are others as well). Here is a link for some of the more common edible nuts that grow in the wild:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/1988-09-01/A-Fall-Field-Guide-to-Nuts.aspx
If you are talking the northeast (I grew up until age 26 in New England and just across the MA. border into NY) then you might also plant sugar maples or red maples for a more long term option on some things (the classic maple syrup, maple candies, etc...) or look for a lot that has appropriate maples on it. There are quite a few things that will go wild easily in New England, try garlic or onions, they like to seed and spread almost anywhere. Keep some packages of non-hybrid seeds in your pop-up so you are ready to plant ASAP if you do have to flee there.

If you get a lot and it is too far away to live on and still work at your current place, then plan on spending long weekends and some vacation time on it. The more time you can spend on improving it the better it will be for later on. But my overall point here is that you can allow nature to help improve your survival chances by just giving it a little help. While having someone else on the place and improving it might help more, it also might backfire and leave you with no place if TSHTF. If the neighbors all know that Joe Blow has been living on and working that lot and you show up and Joe tells you to leave, who do the neighbors back. On the other hand, if the lot is not lived in but you introduce yourself to the neighbors when you are spending your long weekends or vacations there then you have significantly less chance of problems. Personally I trust most other human beings about as far as my 6 yr old could throw them. Plan for the worse and you are either prepared or pleasantly surprised.

Just my $0.02 worth...

Thralen

The task before us all is to develop a community that operates in a post-collapse world, and do it in a pre-collapse environment. In the current environment we have to consider ownership, taxes, permits, the courts, lots of legal mumbojombo, contracts, incorporation, shareholders, equity and fair terms. In a post collapse environment, all of that may be flung to the wind.
Most all partnerships have the overriding meme "what's in it for me," which has to be given attention. In the end, if you take the money and documentation out of the equation, if the only thing you get is a promise of a hot meal, a warm shower, and a dry bed, you've got it better than half the population of the planet.
I'm putting together this here organic farm. If the crash is slow, the farm will be set up to cash in on a continuous rise in food prices. If the crash is fast, the farm is set up to enhance my survival advantage. I have no equity or ownership in the farm. If the farm makes any money, it will go right back into the place in the form of solar PV, wind turbines, water tanks, orchard trees, structures, stored food and supplies, irrigation, livestock, root and storm cellars, and if all that is in place, expansion and land acquisition. For me there is no money, never will be, never was going to be. My work will result in preps. The more success I have, the more preps are put in place. The economy is simply a tool I have available to work with to gather equipment and supplies.

Mos, I've probably asked you this before, but my brain being nothing but a lump of tapioca, I can't remember what you said!

Is there any way you can move your work out to the country? Start your own biz or telecommute? That's how my husband and I managed to move away from the city, we moved our business.

I'm already telecommuting. This is the first telecommuting arrangement I've swung for myself. It was something I asked for when I told my bosses I had to move back to the east coast, otherwise I was going to have to quit. I've been kind of waiting for the axe to fall on me ever since. Telecommuting is a great privilege but it's also a vulnerable feeling not being in the office each day. Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak.

So yes, I could literally move anywhere right now as long as I had high speed internet, although there would be more tax/health paperwork in changing states again.

Also, being physically present at the doomstead doesn't mean I would have enough time to manage it. (Just finding the time to read all these books is causing a lot of lost sleep.) If I'm working a fulltime job I really (officially) only have my lunchbreaks during the week and then the weekends to do things. If I wanted to work over a 5-10 acre property into an edible forest garden with swales et. al. and build an earthship, it would take me decades at that rate. It's something you have to either contract out (and I don't really have THAT much money) or you'd have to take a long sabbatical to do. The raised beds I'm doing in the backyard is a piece of cake in comparison.

Living in the Boston area is a case of serendipity as far as the job market goes. If I lose my job I'm extremely well positioned to find another one. And with public transit up the wazoo, during the early stages of peak oil doom, metro boston is a good place to be. But peak oil is going to mean more than people parking their cars and taking the MBTA.

I think I'd have a difficult time getting another telecommuter job. It can be done, but it limits your options at a time when there is already cutthroat competition for work.

So what is forcing my hand is concern over hyperinflation wiping away the buying power of my savings and the multi-year lag time in setting up the edible forest succession. If this is something I want to do, I think I'm going to have to get the ball rolling on it now, otherwise just dump everything into this 16K square foot suburban lot and cross my fingers.

Another option, though it would not accomplish as much, is to find property near someone with the same goals in mind that you trust to check on the place, hire some work done for you, pre-place some supplies (I have specific ideas of what you could have someone do if you want them drop me a pm), prepare garden space and seed it in a cover crop (ready to be turned when you arrive), set up some shelves with your seeds, perhaps they could even keep a few farm animals for you on their own place, or be willing to commit to give you pick from their first set of births after you give them notice etc etc etc.... Heck maybe they could change the timer on the lights and move an old car around the place so it looks lived in.

This would not be the same as having someone live on the place for you but if it was close by I think you could arrange a partnership where the land remained in your name but you could get some help... the promise of an understanding neighbor might be all the pay off someone would need to help you out,

Well, I don't know. I'm not sure you'd need to develop 5-10 acres, certainly not at first, not all at once. It's true I only work part time for money, but I'm slowly getting the work done on our homestead, in spite of being really really slow, easily distracted, and not especially hard-working....

I guess it sort of depends on if it's something you really want to do or not....

"It's always somthin'" said Rosana Danna.
or
Every plan goes to pot with the first shot, said Pops


The point is, regardless of all the free wisdom and gratis prognostication dispensed at PO.com, no one here can tell you the when, how fast or how far down about the post peak slope.
We're all shooting in the dark.

And too, each of us are all too happy to offer great ideas on the perfect theoretical set-up but even if it were infallible, which none are, it simply may not be your bag.

So if you feel most comfortable staying where you are and working toward a DoomburbTM setup, I say go for it! I think you or anyone else would do much better living where they feel comfortable and altering the plan to fit them instead of shoehorning yourself into someone else's plan.

Hell you can even use Doomburb as the title of your next blog no charge! Start the Movement!

There's 8 acres and a house a couple miles away selling in the neighborhood of $60k.

No way would I partnership a homestead. Too many pitfalls for me. As someone pointed out, nobody seems to want to stay planted in one spot now, either, so you could lose a good partner. And no amount of lawyering can fix a bad partner, nor is it possible to choose a partner without a chance of problems.

Our original move to the country was a combination of planning, common sense, and a lot of luck. The financial key to the matter was being able to transfer to another plant with the same company in our chosen area. So, I kept my good paying job and got to live on the farm. The rest was daylight till dark hard work over 10 years.

Right, this takes a while to get going. Time to get started, IMHO.

After some years of shared house living I would recommend not to search for the biggest ideological agreement, but rather for sound down to earth guys, they are easier to deal with than dreaming hippies.

I think you need both.

I look for a history of accomplishment. I'd rather have someone join who had actually done something than someone who had spent a lot of time talking about it.

But "ideological agreement" covers a lot of ground, and you don't want to ignore it.

Personally I'm working strictly with family and friends(all three of them) I have known for many years.

Not a bad idea for your core founders' group, but you may find that you'll eventually need more than that number of people.

There is a lot of space between a couple or small family taking on a homestead and a full-blown community. I think your core group of trusted friends and family is a good start. But I'd encourage you to be open to carefully adding other in various capacities when it feels right. That word "strictly" in your statement makes me think you may miss out on some wonderful opportunities.

People you have on the land don't have to be permanent or financial stakeholders. They could be "WWWOOFers" or interns. You may find, after some time, one or two of them become invaluable, and you may someday choose to offer them equity as a "leash" to keep them from looking for greener pastures. But none of that is possible if you start out opposed to the idea.

Not exactly a doomstead, but we bought a holiday home in France with 4 other families a few years back.

We all put in 20% and set up a co-operative (limited company) to run the project. It worked really well for ten years, and we only split up because three of the families loved the area so much that they bought nearby properties. We could have bought them out, but had other priorities at the time.

We had ten great years of very cheap holidays and as there were 14 bed spaces, it could easily fit two families at once. We had schedules and plans and the best week of the year was the pre-Easter working week where we all went ot work (and party of course). I was sorry to let it go and didn't realise how much money it had saved us till I next went to France on holiday.

I don't see why the same principle wouldn't work with a doomstead as it was a large property that could have been that with more land. The important thing is to agree up front what your aims are and get clear objective in place.

Worth repeating.

The bad property-sharing experiences are almost all related to a lack of clearly understood common values and goals.

Sometimes it's arrogance ("We know what we're doing, and we don't need to do all this touchy-feely stuff.") or perceived lack of time ("We're busy with feeding ourselves and making our own energy, and don't have time for all this touchy-feely stuff."), but whatever the reason, you neglect addressing FOG (Finance, Organization, and Governance) issues to your peril.

And while most people stress the financial rewards, intentional community is much more than a way to save money, and those who go into it with the primary goal of saving money are likely to fail, as well.